The manufacture of boxes and cartons is a highly automated process. As part of the process, blank flat sheets of material, such as paperboard, cardboard, or corrugated cardboard are transported by a feeding apparatus, such as a prefeeder, to a finishing or converting machine. The blank sheets are loaded into the feeding apparatus in large stacks, typically at an input hopper. The feeding apparatus breaks the large stacks of sheets into smaller stacks, may invert some or all of the sheets, and provides the sheets to the converting machine in a useable form, typically a shingled stream. The converting machine may then print, cut, fold, glue, or otherwise perform work on the sheets to make folded boxes, cartons or other items.
Commonly the bottom sheet or sheets of the large stacks will be damaged so that they are unsuitable for use in forming the end product boxes or cartons. More importantly, these damaged bottom sheets may cause material jams in the converting machine. This can lead to a loss in productivity. Therefore, it is desirable to sort out the sheets that were on the bottom of the large stacks before passing the sheets to the converting machine hopper.
One potential solution to the damaged bottom sheet problem has been to remove the bottom sheet or sheets from the conveyor system of the feeding apparatus. These removed sheets have generally been deposited directly on to the floor, or on to a tray or cart that can be pulled manually out of the feeding apparatus. In the past, the removed sheets have been removed from the feeding apparatus in a flat horizontal orientation. This orientation is not advantageous for a user to maneuver and dispose of the waste sheets. It is ergonomically difficult for the user to grasp the sheets when they are lying flat. The flat lying sheets do not slide easily because of the large surface area in contact with the floor, and because a lateral force applied to a stack will tend to cause the sheets to slide off of each other.
Therefore, there is a need for an improved apparatus and method for removing waste sheets from a sheet feeding apparatus.